10:762:352 and 34:970:653 Bloustein School of Planning and Policy, Rutgers University

Cybercities

10:762:352 and 34:970:653 Bloustein School of Planning and Policy, Rutgers University

Fall 2014. Civic Square Building 261 Thursdays 1.10-2.30 and online. (Hybrid course).

Briavel Holcomb. Office 534 CSB. 848 932-2379

Office hours Thurs 10am to noon and by appointment

Class website on Sakai – http://sakai.rutgers.edu

“There can be no gainsaying about the fact that a great revolution is taking place in the world today…That is, a technological revolution with the impact of automation and cybernation…Modern man through scientific genius has been able to dwarf distance. Through our genius we have made this world a neighborhood. And yet we – we have not yet had the ethical commitment to make of it a brotherhood. But somehow, and in some way, we have got to do this.” Martin Luther King, four days before he died in 1968.

This course explores some of the social and economic implications of the new communications technology – especially the internet/WWW – focusing on the changes the net is bringing to urban life. “As the English urbanist Sir Peter Hall has observed, the difficulty in predicting the impact of the internet on our metropolitan areas can be compared with the difficulty observers faced 80 years ago in predicting the impact of the automobile…Some observers assert that the internet will doom cities to obsolescence as cyberspace communication replaces face-to-face contacts that cities used to provide. Others see big cities reborn as hip environments where the art world and other urban-based centers of creativity meet the new technology of communications” (Robert Fishman “The American Metropolis at Century’s End: Past and Future Influences”).

Like the communications technology this course is about, its structure is fluid and changing. The course will include some rudimentary technological material on, for example, bandwidth, cable vs. wireless, mobile technologies, but it is not a “how to” or technical course. Rather, we explore how the IT revolution is changing employment, education, entertainment, politics, transportation, security and interpersonal communications. While society is changing in scales from the global to the local in response to these new technologies, our focus is on cities.

The ancient professor of this course may be the least technologically literate person in the room and will be learning with you. This is your class and you should be prepared to participate and contribute. Pair/group projects are encouraged and you are urged to communicate online outside of class time. All the latest research in education points to the value of peer learning rather than lectures. Since this is a hybrid course, you will be expected to spend at least 80 minutes a week on course learning, in addition to homework reading.

Learning Objectives

At the conclusion of this course, the student will better understand

`Some of the many ways the Web and ITC are changing our lives

`The growth and structure of cyberspace

`The digital divide and its implications domestically and internationally

` The role of ITC in changing political life – the “Arab Spring” etc

`Governments uses and regulation of the Web

`Digital economy and E-commerce and how that changes bricks and mortar commerce

`E-Education trends

` E-Health potentialities and drawbacks

`Some of the many implications of social networking

`E-Waste

`Will be aware of the fast changing nature of this technology

Reading and Assignments.

There is no required text for this class, but no shortage of recommended reading. If you decide to buy a book, I recommend Anthony Townsend Smart Cities: Big Data, Civic Hackers, and the Quest for a New Utopia (2013). Anthony graduated in Urban Studies at Rutgers in the mid Nineties. He went on to a master’s in urban planning from NYU and a PhD in planning from MIT. He works at the Institute for the Future in CA and at NYU and gave a lecture at Bloustein last Spring. Another new book is edited by Rutgers Newark professor Alan Shark, with Sylviane Toporkoff and Sebastien Levy Smart Cities for a Bright Sustainable Future: A Global Perspective 2014 Public Technology Institute.

You are expected to read for several hours each week, either from books or online material, including journal articles from Google Scholar. There are weekly online assignments which constitute about half your overall grade.

With another student from the class, select a recently published book related to the class. Read it (on a Kindle if you wish!) and discuss it with your reading partner. Each write a short review – one of you write a positive review, the other a critical one. Submit your reviews on Sakai by October 16. If time permits, I will ask for volunteers to summarize the book and your reviews verbally in class. Some book suggestions (but there are many other possibilities) include:

Steven Levy In the Plex: How Google thinks, Works and Shapes our Lives (April, 2011)

Richard Brandt One Click: Jeff Bezos and the Rise of Amazon (October 2011)

David Kirkpatrick The Facebook Effect (Feb. 2011)

Ken Auletta Googled: The End of the World as we know it (Oct 2010)

Nicholas Carr The Shallows: What the Internet is doing to our brains (June 2011)

Sherry Turkle Alone Together: Why we expect more from technology and less from each other (Jan, 2011)

Jaron Lanier You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto (Feb 2011)

Mark Bauerlein The Digital Divide: Arguments for and Against Facebook, Google, Texting and the Age of Social Networking (Sept. 2011).

Jeff Jarvis Public Parts: How Sharing in the Digital Age Improves the Way we Work and Live (Sept 2011)

Kate Bussmann A Twitter Year (Dec 2011)

Andrew Blum Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet (2012)

Erik Qualman Socialnomics: How Social Media transforms the way we live and do business (2011)

Evgeny Morozov The Net Delusion: How Not to Liberate the World (2011)

Jaron Lanier You are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto (2011)

John Brockman Is the Internet changing the way you think? (2011)

S. Levmore and Martha Nussbaum. The Offensive Internet: Speech, Privacy and Reputation (May 2012)

Katherine Losse The Boy Kings: A journey into the heart of the social network (May 2012)

Michael Mandiberg (ed) The Social Media Reader (2012)

Julian Assange et al Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet 2012.

James Curran et al Misunderstanding the Internet (Communication and Society) 2012

Daniel Ventre Information Warfare (Jan 2013)

Frederick Lane Obscene Profits: The Entrepreneurs of Pornography in the Cyber Age ((2012)

Carlisle George et al eHealth: Legal, Ethical and Governance Challenges (2012)

Manuel Castells Networks of Outrage and Hope 2012

Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen. The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations and Business 2013

Robert McChesney Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism is Turning the Internet against Democracy 2013

Jaron Lanier Who Owns the Future? 2013

Andrew Blum. Tubes: A journey to the center of the Internet 2013

John Bruner Industrial Internet 2013

Karen Mossberger et al. Digital Cities: The Internet and the Geography of Opportunity 2013

Nik Bessis and Cirian Dobre. Big Data and Internet of Things: A Roadmap for Smart Environments 2014.

All students are required to follow the Rutgers regulations concerning academic integrity. See http://academicintegrity.rutgers.edu/integrity.shtml

Attendance/Participation Policy Students are expected to attend all classes; if you expect to miss one or more classes, please use the University absence reporting website at https://sims/rutgers.edu/ssra/ to indicate the date and reason for your absence. An email will automatically be sent to me from this system. Note that if you miss classes for longer than one week, you should contact a dean of students to help verify your circumstances. If your absence is for religious observance, you are responsible for making up the work by the following week.

Evaluation: Each week you are asked to complete several online assignments and to post a “current event” relevant to cybercities. Each of these assignments receives points which together constitute about half the grade for the class. See under Discussion and Private Messages on Sakai for these assignments.

Your book review (see above) counts for 15% of your grade. Due October 16 or before.

Paper: For the rest of your grade, select a topic related to this class. It may be a topic included in the syllabus, or another which could relate to the Internet and urban society. Impact of video games on society? Building local community online? The demise of bricks and mortar bookstores? Selling stuff through social networks? Digital employment in 2015 (or whenever you’ll graduate)? Legalizing online gambling in NJ? The only requirement is that it has something to do with cyber stuff and something to do with cities. Check with me for pre-approval of your topic! Write an academic paper, with correctly cited references. References (at least ten) should include journal articles, books and can include newspaper articles, government documents, etc. Use Google Scholar rather than plain Google! We’ll be using Turn-it-in so do not plagiarize. If you don’t understand what this means, come and talk with me.

No more than two people can select the same topic. You can co-author a paper but it must be at least 15 pages with more references. Unless you indicate otherwise, I will assume you deserve the same grade as your co-author. This can be completed and posted via Sakai any time during the semester but must be done by December 4. It will count for 30% of your grade. The other 5% is for attendance and participation.

Preliminary Schedule (subject to change)

September 4 Introduction to course and mini history of technological change in communications. (PP “Cybercities”)

Start exploring some of the voluminous literature, selecting your paper topic and your book to review. A few places to start include the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/home/ Pew Internet Center at http://www.pewinternet.org/ As an antidote to hype about the web, read http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google “Is Google making us Stupid?” (2008)

http://www.cyburbia.org/ Urban Planning cyber community

Assignments:Current Event (each week); Medium & reading; Collage

September 11 Growth and structure of the net. Uneven development. Digital Divides. One Laptop Per Child. Inveneo. (PP. Cybercities intro continued; olpc)

Browse this 2008 report on citizen empowerment via web globally:

http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/library/Introduction-to-Citizen-Media-EN.pdf

Negroponte’s One Laptop Per Child initiative. http://laptop.org/en/vision/index.shtml

.Assigments: OLPC; Cellphones in developing countries; post paper topic.

September 18 Wired cities, “smart” buildings, mobile communications. Data Centers and “the cloud.” (PP WiFi)

See http://www.gig-u.org/ for a recent initiative linking universities with their communities to utilize broad bandwidth for innovation.

See Podcast by Rob Kitchin on “Soft Cities” in Resources.

Browse www.govtech.net/digitalcommunities

Read Tom Friedman “So much fun. So irrelevant” op ed in New York Times Jan 4, 2012.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/04/opinion/friedman-so-much-fun-so-irrelevant.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

Assignments: Crisis Commons org.; Outrageous homes.

September 25 Online communities, E- Government and Politics online. (PP E Govt)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/fashion/no-scrolling-required-at-new-dating-sites.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

http://secondlife.com/

http://sl.rutgers.edu/ Second Life at Rutgers

Building virtual neighborhoods – see:

http://www.newgeography.com/content/00943-online-neighborhood-the-front-porch-forum

Assignments: Hometown website; candidate webpage.

October 2 International politics and IT: Arab Spring, Wikileaks etc. (PP International Politics and new media)

Wikileaks: News in the Networked Era by Charlie Beckett and James Ball, (2012)

“Facebookers vs Donor Darlings: The Distortion of reality in the depiction of the Egypt Revolution of 2011 by the use of social media activists as journalistic sources by Maiko Schaffrath (2011).

Assignments: Role of web(Facebook/Twitter etc) in recent politics of selected country.

October 9. Digital economy and E Commerce. Work and employment on the net. The Dot Com economy. (PP Digital economy and c-commerce)

Browse http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/reference/indexcommerce.html

Assignments: Future of advertising; Resume and job application.

October 16 E-Education. (PP E Education)

Distance learning implications. “The internet is as revolutionary as the printing press.” There is a huge amount of material on this. Find something which appeals to you. Check out a MOOC you might want to take.

http://www.phoenix.edu/ What would be the advantages and drawbacks of you transferring to the Univ of Phoenix and finishing your degree online?

Assignments: MIT Open Courseware; TED video

Book Review Due!

October 23 E-Health. (PP E-Health) On-line health information and consulting. Specialist video-conferencing. Online medical records. For recent developments see

http://www.ehealthinitiative.org/ and http://www.jmir.org/2001/2/e20

Assignments: Bad health advice; Online psychotherapy

October 30 Social networking online. MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.

Tamara Swedberg (Instructional Technology Specialist)

There are millions of sites with information (and opinions, and misinformation!) about this. Explore!

Assignments: Academic article on social networking; Twitter in classroom.

November 6 Potpourri: Online religion. Children’s online games. Online adoption. Online dating. (PP Adopting online. Online dating. Prostitution online.)

http://www.rainbowkids.com/

http://www.adoptuskids.org/

http://www.joanganzcooneycenter.org/

http://www.religion-online.org/

Assignments. Really good/bad kids online games;

November 13 Regulating the web. Censorship issues. (PP Regulating the Web)Cybersecurity and “Homeland” Security. Online gambling. Video: Hate and the Internet. For discussion of censorship see http://www.chillingeffects.org

Enter “Regulating the Web” in google for up to date sources.

See “Al Queda’s Web” in resources.

Assignments: Google in China. Internet Gambling

November 20 E-Waste (PP E-Waste)

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/toxics/electronics/the-e-waste-problem/where-does-e-waste-end-up/

Assignment: complete all work for course. Prepare for last class discussion on futures of web/e-communication.

November 27 Thanksgiving

December 4 Predictions for the future. (PP Cybercities Future) Come to class prepared to discuss what you think will happen in the near/later future of communications and how it will affect cities, urban life, human interaction.

http://www.mdpi.com/journal/futureinternet Journal of Future Internet.

http://www.freepress.net/media_issues/internet Future of the Internet by FreePress

Graduate student paper presentations

Final course paper due today!